It's Victorian London in the late 1800s, and it's been five years since the sweep disappeared.

Orphan and alone, Nance Sparrow has no other choice but to work for a ruthless chimney sweep, named Wilkie Crud.

She spends her days doing dangerous work sweeping out chimneys.

The job is thankless, but with her wits and will, Nance has managed to beat the deadly odds time and time again.

This time though, she gets stuck in a chimney fire.

She wakes to find herself unharmed in an abandoned attic, and she is not alone.

Huddled in the corner is a mysterious creature, a gallom made from sutt and ash.

This gallom will come to know as Charlie.

His large and lovable and nann, our heroine, will raise him almost like her own child.

He is, in the end, her protector.

Sweep, the story of a girl and her monster, is a book written by Jonathan Augsier.

It won the 2019 Sydney Taylor Book Award, and it won a place in my all-time,

tippy-top favorite books.

It's a Charles Dickens-like adventure about the everlasting gifts of friendship and wonder.

Today, I want to introduce you to the book and to the man who wrote it.

I'm Sarah McKenzie. Welcome to the Read-A-Loud Revival.

Charlie was sitting on the edge of Nance' bed, just as she had left in that morning.

For all she knew, he had been waiting in that spot the whole time.

Can you read me a story?

He was holding a book of English tales which included Jack the Giant Killer,

Tom Thumb, and the Wee Bannock.

It was the only proper story book in the house, and he had been asking Nann to read it over and over for weeks.

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